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Former Barclays Traders Sentenced in Libor-Rigging Case

LONDON — Four former Barclays employees were sentenced to prison terms on Thursday – the longest of which was six and a half years – after three of the traders were convicted last week of plotting to manipulate the benchmark interest rate known as Libor.

The convictions came in the third trial to focus on a scandal involving Libor, the London interbank offered rate.

A half-decade investigation into activity by traders around the interest rate led to billions of dollars in fines and shook the reputations of some of the world’s biggest banks, including Deutsche Bank, the Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS, as well as Barclays.

Two former Barclays traders, Jay Vijay Merchant and Alex Pabon, as well as Jonathan J. Mathew, a former rate submitter at the bank, were convicted on a charge of conspiracy to defraud last week, and their convictions were announced on Monday.

Mr. Merchant, who supervised Mr. Pabon, received the longest sentence of six and a half years in prison. Mr. Mathew was sentenced to four years in prison, while Mr. Pabon received a sentence of two years and nine months.

At Thursday’s hearing, Judge Anthony J. Leonard said the men were highly culpable in the matter and said their behavior showed “an absence of integrity that ought to categorize banking.”

Peter Johnson, a former Barclays trader and Mr. Mathew’s boss, pleaded guilty to a criminal conspiracy charge in October 2014 and was sentenced to four years prison, alongside the other men, on Thursday.

To set Libor and other rates, banks submit the rates at which they would be prepared to lend money to one another, on an unsecured basis, in various currencies and at varying maturities. Libor is used to price more than $300 trillion in securities.

Barclays was the first bank to settle the matter and paid $450 million in penalties. The ensuing scandal cost Robert E. Diamond Jr., then the bank’s chief executive, his job.

In the latest case, the Serious Fraud Office of Britain claimed that derivative traders at Barclays in New York and London, including Mr. Merchant and Mr. Pabon, conspired with rate submitters in London to try to manipulate the benchmark interest rate.

The conspiracy was intended to increase the profits that traders made from interest rate swaps and other derivative contracts with counterparties, which could include other banks, governments and pension funds, prosecutors said.

The jury was unable to reach a verdict on charges against two other former Barclays traders. The Serious Fraud Office said on Wednesday that it would seek a retrial against those men.

British prosecutors have had mixed results in their efforts to pursue criminal charges in the Libor matter.

Tom Hayes, a former UBS and Citigroup trader, was convicted of criminal charges in August and is serving 11 years in prison.

But in January, a jury acquitted six former brokers of criminal charges that they had helped Mr. Hayes manipulate Libor.

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